Potable, portable water has become an increasingly sought-after and common-place commodity by modern day consumers. Whether natural spring water, or purified and/or re-mineralized drinking water, to address varying consumer demands for convenience and availability, water vendors have developed a number of bottle sizes and approaches to dispense and to deliver water. One such approach described more fully below uses established food stores. e.g., supermarkets, wholesale and convenience stores, as well as other types of retail establishments, within which bottled water in varying sizes is normally offered on store shelves. A second approach is to offer larger 3, 4 and 5 gallon bottles, often stacked independently of the market's shelves due to their considerable weight, and later to normally be used with water coolers for dispensing.
For companies involved in the home and office water delivery business, competition with respect to price, service, contract terms, availability of product, consistency of product, permitting in and out of state, delivery expenses including the acquisition of, or lease of, government approved trucks, fuel costs, tolls, taxes, maintenance and repair, labor and labor related benefits all add considerably to the cost of the delivered water. Additional costs such as a sales force, bookkeeping department, plant inventory, delivered inventory, truck-loaded inventory and FIFO handling of product inventory, further add to the cost. Regional weather and security-related issues can affect deliveries to homes, offices and apartment buildings.
An additional problem is the use of rented water coolers. Companies providing on-site delivery services that rent coolers to their customers have to deal with repair and maintenance, cleaning, billing and collection of rental fees and access to gated communities and high-rise apartments.
A yet further set of issues with respect to the home/office delivery business concerns state permitting practices and procedures. States vary considerably in their permitting requirements such that one company may decide against doing business in certain states to avoid disparate permitting requirements.
Distribution of particular brands of water for home/office delivery may be further restricted by geographical considerations, such as distance from a bottling facility. Many homes and businesses may be outside the feasible mileage radius of the bottling plant to warrant delivery at a competitive or acceptable price. The end result is the delivery of bottles and coolers along with all the related costs creates a fractionalized cost model that requires high volume to achieve low margins.
Similar problems surface with the distribution of 3 and 5 gallon bottles through supermarket and wholesale club stores. “Centralizing” distribution does centralize costs and simplify bottle delivery and empty bottle pickup. It also reduces or eliminates many of the other problems associated with home/office delivery. Problems such as billing and collection, however, still remain, even though on a centralized, consolidated manner wherein the bottler invoices the supermarket and wholesale stores rather than invoice individual home and/or office customers. One solution to the invoicing issue is to rely on the retailer to electronically transfer funds directly and automatically. This has become increasingly popular with the advent of e-commerce.
In this particular model of distribution, the customers serve themselves and prepay for the bottled water products, and often prepay for the bottles as well, at a central location instead of being invoiced separately at dispersed locations for the delivered bottle water purchase and/or cooler rental. One of the drawbacks of this model is retailer control over hours of operation and location that limits customer access to water bottles.
As an added difficulty/inconvenience, the customer must carry/handle the product to a certain extent in order to get the 3, 4 or 5 gallon bottle to their vehicle from inside the store. Such purchases are often performed simultaneously with shopping for other items inside the store, (depending upon whether it's a grocer or retailer—this can be a significant limitation), that only adds to the inconvenience. And often times, this will result in a separate trip back and forth to the vehicle and back and forth to customer service to return empties, and in some cases, to receive a voucher, to stand in line in order to present to a cashier as a credit against the purchase of a new bottled water product and then again out to the vehicle (or continue to shop inside the store before travelling back to the vehicle). This can have the unfortunate effect of limiting sales brought about by the inconvenience inherent when large water bottles are purchased.
This model of distribution thus has significant temporal and convenience limitations as it relies entirely on the individual store hours and on the location(s) of the stores. A further inconvenience and limitation is based upon the location(s) inside stores where bottles are returned and where bottles are purchased and retrieved. Added to this is the common practice of using vouchers to confirm bottle returns for a return-bottle credit, which, if lost, or the receipt printer is out of order, cannot be used to obtain a credit against a subsequent purchase of a filled bottle.
A substantial reason why water bottles are sold in stores is due to the effect of climate and weather on water. If left exposed to the elements—even in sealed containers—water can freeze and/or overheat. In the alternative, even if the bottled water were to be stacked outside the store on the sidewalk (so to speak) for purchase, it would still have to be brought back into the store at closing to reduce the risk of theft and to prevent freezing in colder climates. By way of example, there can be as many as 75-100 bottles stacked on the shelves of wholesale clubs. If not left inside the store, but displayed for sale outside, the bottles would need to be taken in each and every night absent some form of security measure such as a security fence with a locked door/gate. It should come as no surprise that water bottles sold by wholesale clubs are more likely to sell than bottles from store racks/shelves inside the club facilities.
Not only does this model create extra effort and handling for the customer, just as importantly, it places a constant burden on the retailer as it can involve the ongoing and tedious tasks of price-labeling, of handling the piles of empties and of planning the use of valuable floor/shelf space in designated “water aisles” such as those found in a supermarket or a Wal-Mart store. The same burden is experienced when the bottles are placed on separate shelving or pallets in retail stores such as Home Depot, or Lowe's, or in food clubs such as B.J.'s Wholesale Club. Sam's Club, Costco, etc. These problems are exacerbated by the fact that these self-serve products weigh about 44.5 lbs. per five gallon bottle and about 25.5 lbs. per 3 gallon bottle. This creates significant handling logistics for both the consumer and the store. For example, a 3 gallon bottle typically takes up an 8″D-10-½″D×13″H space and an 11″D×20″H space for a 5 gallon bottle. Sales of, and even profits derived from, this product can sometimes be negated by the extra handling and “shelf-space” required, and the available interior floor space and location available.
Several other problems involving this distribution model are not readily apparent. For example, in the case of a grocery store, the customer must carry the 45 lb., 32 lb., or 25 lb. bottles around the store in a grocery cart, wait in line for a check-out clerk and then bring the bottle out to his or her vehicle, sometimes in inclement weather conditions and across a parking lot, to their parking space location that could be several hundred feet or yards away.
This scenario is equally relevant to wholesale and retail store locations and may be worse because the customer must park their car; bring any empties to the “customer service area” to redeem their deposit(s) and get a receipt; go to the cashier (wait in another line); pay for a new bottle(s) of water; go to the location where the 3's and 5's are kept; pick up the purchased bottles; place them in a basket carrier and then wheel them out to their vehicle, much the same as in the supermarket model. This is not the most customer friendly or convenient delivery model and again can stifle sales because many, if not most, shoppers at supermarkets are consumers doing their weekly shopping. In this scenario, buying drinking water in large quantities is not necessarily a “destination,” or “convenient purchase.”
In an improved form of distribution, 3, 4 and 5 gallon bottled water can be distributed during and outside normal business hours in a vending machine model designed to handle either the 3, 4 or 5 gallon sizes of bottled water and their similarly sized empty returns. This is accomplished by using a single apparatus, located outside a retailer's store on a sidewalk, “end-cap”, or some other similar, customer-friendly location where customers can drive up, buy and return their bottles (24/7) and leave. Alternatively, the customers can shop first if they choose, and then purchase their water on the way out of the store or simply come to the store location on their own schedule without having to interact with store personnel or be concerned with store hours.
In this novel distribution system, customers aren't reliant on retailers' hours of operation; both the bottle return and the purchase of the product are in the same apparatus; and retailers can offer guaranteed FDA and Board of Health approved products “packaged” and not delivered “bulk.” With use of Applicants' novel apparatus, customers don't have to bring their own “clean and sanitary” containers. The apparatus provides a cashless transaction that should reduce, if not eliminate theft because the apparatus is maintained in a closed condition 24/7 except during lawful purchase events. The apparatus further provides a convenient method of payment for the consumer because one of three or four methods of payment may be offered. If cash is preferable, the system can accept a prepaid water card, which can be purchased from the retailer associated with the apparatus. This method of payment is also compatible with retailers' cross-promotion activities such as discount programs where the customer can receive discounts off their purchase with the use of apparatus-recognized, retailer-approved coupons and/or retailer “advantage” cards, or even the use of RFID payment methods, or 2-D barcode for downloading coupons using new smartphone technologies.
The vending apparatus is configured to include lighting adequate to impart improved nighttime safety and appearance as well as improved customer-friendly operating features. As an example, the entire front of the machine and interior portion of the bottle well are illuminated with LED, energy saving lights. With applicants' novel apparatus, inventory re-supply can be maintained on an “on demand” basis as the apparatus includes wireless communication with the bottler and/or dispatch control center to report when the vending apparatus is low on inventory, or needs service. The apparatus software is further configured to allow manual input of inventory when loading the full bottles thereby creating an “Input” and “Output Sales” Inventory control. A “return bottle” well/window can, if need be, incorporate a vendor controlled reader for RFID or bar codes secured to the bottles and incorporating a Unique Identification Number (UID) acceptable only to that bottler's product bottles for the amount paid when first purchased. The machine and its individual major parts will be “serialized” using unique identification technology as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. RE 40,659 and RE 40,692
With the use of Applicants' novel apparatus, many unnecessary and unwanted business expenses and inconveniences are now eliminated as further explained in this disclosure. The apparatus may also include clear, multilingual signage and voice instructions to assist customers with their purchases unlike some other models of distribution. The need for bookkeeping is essentially eliminated due to the apparatus' wireless, gateway and other automated features for all parties concerned. The size and shape of the vendor machine is expandable or contractible with modular features that allow for customization based upon the location, and re-fill delivery costs.
There should be no building permits or other special permits/license fees required unlike some other types of vending and distribution apparatuses as Applicants' vending apparatus should meet all NAMA, ADA and U/L requirements. Although there are hundreds of various models and types of vending machines, almost all of those machines and kiosks sell “packaged/bottled” water or soft drinks and are “small pack” sizes, less than 3 gallon, and do not address the problems associated with selling larger 3 and 5 gallon size bottles.
Many currently available water vending machines are “unpackaged” bulk water vending machines that require the customer to bring their own “clean, sanitary containers”. These type machines are heavily regulated on an individual location basis and require, in many cases, both local and state permits and licenses from boards of health, plumbing, building and wiring inspectors as well as local water quality agencies such as the California Department of Health; the Rhode Island Board of Health; the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP); the New York Department of Health; the Massachusetts Board of Health; the Licensing Board of Certified Operators. These requirements can vary greatly from state to state. The disclosed vending apparatus eliminates these requirements because all necessary permitting issues are already addressed before the product is loaded into a truck to deliver to the vending apparatuses at their retail location(s).
With respect to return bottles, in two currently used self-service vending systems, the “Return Bottle” area is located generally in a customer service area located as one enters the retail store where the “return” is either put in a designated “Return Bottle Area” (loose and unconstrained) or in a “Return Bottle” enclosed compartment that accepts all bottles from all vendors and prints a “refund” slip to be cashed in when purchasing a new filled bottle at a location elsewhere in the store. It falls to the customer to push a grocery cart with their bottled water—bottles which can weigh as much as 45 lbs. per 5 gallon bottle and more, depending on the number of bottles purchased and the style of bottle used—out to their vehicle located some distance from the store exit. The disclosed vending apparatus eliminates these inconveniences and problems almost entirely.
What is needed is an apparatus that accommodates large 3, 4 and/or 5 gallon bottles and allows for the return of emptied bottles and the purchase of filled bottles from the same apparatus. What is also needed is an apparatus that can execute a cashless retail sales transaction without the need for the presence of a merchant during normal business hours. These and other objects of the disclosure will become apparent from a reading of the following summary and detailed description of the disclosure as well as a review of the appended drawings.